SPS Shifts to New Missouri Educator Standards
by Dr. Brady Quirk, Director of Talent Initiatives

Missouri teachers and school leaders will soon be working from a new set of educator standards designed to promote educator growth and ultimately help students reach higher levels of achievement. The standards fit right in with Springfield Public School’s philosophy of continuous improvement.  Rooted in best practices, the research-based standards are designed along a continuum that illustrates how educators grow and mature professionally throughout their career. These new standards will be the foundation for a new educator evaluation system that will be piloted during the 2014-15 school year and fully implemented for the 2015-16 school year.

The new standards and evaluation system are a result of Missouri’s Senate Bill 291, passed in 2010, which requires districts to adopt revised standards of teaching and learning. The standards were examined by all the primary Missouri educator organizations that represent teachers and leaders, vetted by 32 K-12 districts of various sizes (including SPS), and reviewed by 25 Missouri colleges and universities before being adopted by the state board of education in 2013. Additionally, the standards are cross-referenced with the research-based initiatives of Dr. Robert Marzano (author of Classroom Instruction that Works, among many others), Dr. John Hattie (Visible Learning and Visible Learning for Teachers), and Doug Lemov (Teach like a Champion). 

SPS teachers will find that the new standards support much of what they already do. The emphases on communication, collaboration, and critical thinking align perfectly with the Springfield Public Schools’ Learning Model. Associate Superintendent for Education Services Marty Moore describes the connection: “Our Learning Model captures what effective teachers have always known and, more importantly, DONE in their classrooms: built relationships with their students, communicated high expectations, worked with them to set clear learning targets, and created streams of feedback to guide their progress. The classrooms they lead provide opportunities for students to think critically, collaborate, and communicate about significant, relevant issues that prepare them for THEIR futures, rather than our past.”

Other standards and indicators perfectly match the professional learning training currently facilitated by the Department of Professional Learning, including classroom management, cooperative learning, and differentiated instruction. Director of Professional Learning Kathy Gross comments, “As I read the quality indicators under each standard I make connections to the core, the capabilities, and the processes of our Learning Model. I see the philosophy of being a continuous learner. I am reminded of what we’ve considered the essentials of our induction program. The members of the Department of Professional Learning are anxious to support each professional’s growth plan as we focus on the commitment and practice of professional educators and their impact.”

The new educator evaluation system is based on educator growth over time rather than a “gotcha” style evaluation. The evaluation process involves the principal and teacher collaboratively selecting three indicators that will be the focus for the year, with a growth plan established based on those selections. The nine standards and 36 accompanying indicators offer many venues for teachers to select from when planning their professional learning growth opportunities.

The entire Educational Services Division, including the departments of Professional Learning, Curriculum, Assessment & Instruction, Information Technology, Quality Improvement & Accountability, and Information Literacy will be partnering with sites as the new evaluation process is piloted this school year. Focus on Learning will highlight the standards in each edition throughout the 2014-15 school year to help familiarize teachers with the details.

For more information, please check out the DESEvideo on the creation & implementation of new standards (8 minutes).

Standard #1: Content Knowledge and Perspectives Aligned with Appropriate Instruction

The teacher understands the central concepts, structures and tools of inquiry of the discipline(s) and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful and engaging for all students.

Quality Indicator 1: Content knowledge and academic language
Quality Indicator 2: Engaging students in subject matter
Quality Indicator 3: Disciplinary research and inquiry methodologies
Quality Indicator 4: Interdisciplinary instruction
Quality Indicator 5: Diverse social and cultural perspective

Standard #2: Understanding and Encouraging Student Learning, Growth and Development

The teacher understands how students learn, develop and differ in their approaches to learning. The teacher provides learning opportunities that are adapted to diverse learners and support the intellectual, social and personal development of all students.

Quality Indicator 1: Cognitive, social, emotional and physical development
Quality Indicator 2: Student goals
Quality Indicator 3: Theory of learning
Quality Indicator 4: Meeting the needs of every student
Quality Indicator 5: Prior experiences, learning styles, multiple intelligences, strengths and needs
Quality Indicator 6: Language, culture, family and knowledge of community

Standard #3: Implementing the Curriculum

The teacher recognizes the importance of long-range planning and curriculum development. The teacher develops, implements and evaluates curriculum based upon standards and student needs.

Quality Indicator 1: Implementation of curriculum standards
Quality Indicator 2: Develop lessons for diverse learners
Quality Indicator 3: Analyze instructional goals and differentiated instructional strategies

Standard #4: Teaching for Critical Thinking

The teacher uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students’ critical thinking, problem solving and performance skills including instructional resources.

Quality Indicator 1: Instructional strategies leading to student engagement in problem solving and critical thinking
Quality Indicator 2: Appropriate use of instructional resources to enhance student learning
Quality Indicator 3: Cooperative learning

Standard #5: Creating a Positive Classroom Learning Environment

The teacher uses an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that encourages active engagement in learning, positive social interaction and self-motivation.

Quality Indicator 1: Classroom management, motivation and engagement
Quality Indicator 2: Managing time, space, transitions and activities
Quality Indicator 3: Classroom, school and community culture

Standard #6: Utilizing Effective Communication

The teacher models effective verbal, nonverbal and media communication techniques with students and parents to foster active inquiry, collaboration and supportive interaction in the classroom.

Quality Indicator 1: Verbal and nonverbal communication
Quality Indicator 2: Sensitivity to culture, gender, intellectual and physical differences
Quality Indicator 3: Learner expression in speaking, writing and other media
Quality Indicator 4: Technology and media communication tools

Standard #7: Use of Student Assessment Data to Analyze and Modify Instruction

The teacher understands and uses formative and summative assessment strategies to assess the learner’s progress, uses assessment data to plan ongoing instruction, monitors the performance of each student, and devises instruction to enable students to grow and develop.

Quality Indicator 1: Effective use of assessments
Quality Indicator 2: Assessment data to improve learning
Quality Indicator 3: Student-led assessment strategies
Quality Indicator 4: Effect of instruction on individual/class learning
Quality Indicator 5: Communication of student progress and maintaining records
Quality Indicator 6: Collaborative data analysis process

Standard #8: Professional Practice

The teacher is a reflective practitioner who continually assesses the effects of choices and actions on others. The teacher actively seeks out opportunities to grow professionally in order to improve learning for all students.

Quality Indicator 1: Self-assessment and improvement
Quality Indicator 2: Professional learning
Quality Indicator 3: Professional rights, responsibilities and ethical practices

Standard #9: Professional Collaboration

The teacher has effective working relationships with students, parents, school colleagues and community members.

Quality Indicator 1: Roles, responsibilities and collegial activities
Quality Indicator 2: Collaborating with historical, cultural, political and social context to meet the needs of students
Quality Indicator 3: Cooperative partnerships in support of student learning

Going Beyond Good Enough
by Curtis Cunningham, SPS Professional Learning Specialist

Welcome back to another school year!  We have a clean slate, a fresh start.  What will we do with the time we are given during the 2014-2015 school year? 

If you’ve had much opportunity to engage in professional reading, you’ve probably become familiar with the work of Carol Dweck in the area of mindset.  Simply put, Dweck (2006) learned through her research at Stanford “that there were two meanings to ability, not one: a fixed ability that needs to be proven, and a changeable ability that can be developed through learning” (p. 15).  Our approach to ability can have profound impact on the way in which our students interact with our curriculum, our instructional strategies, our school culture.  The sometimes merciless pursuit of excellence can seem to threaten the slow methodical pace of gradual improvement.  Our students experience this pressure, and it can affect even the most stalwart teachers.

Oftentimes we place a focus on how we want our students to grow.  But what about our personal growth?  What do we want to see in ourselves?  Is there ever a “good enough” when it comes to teaching?  Is this a dangerous term?  We say we’ll never arrive at the destination of becoming a perfect teacher.  Do we sometimes use that as an excuse to stop trying?

In the coming years we will have a unique opportunity to apply a growth mindset to our performance as educators.  The new teacher evaluation system will reflect a continuum of several criteria.  These criteria are indicative of high performing teachers and as such can serve as a useful tool for continued professional growth.  On the other hand, these criteria can serve as a checklist whereby an experienced teacher can satisfy their own fixed mindset and neglect continuous growth.  I suggest the difference comes in the question we ask ourselves.  As we review the criteria, we can ask “Am I doing this in my classroom?” or we can ask “To what degree am I doing this in my classroom?” 

There is little doubt that effective teachers are already implementing many of these criteria.  After all, these criteria are designed to create a picture of effective teaching.  It seems logical that effective teachers would naturally gravitate toward behaviors that support student learning.  If we simply ask “Am I doing this in my classroom?” we are in essence looking for an opportunity to pat ourselves on the back and check the box.

However, if we ask ourselves “To what extent am I meeting this criteria?” we have the opportunity to validate what we are already doing well and recognize what we might need to do more frequently or in greater depth.

At Leadership Institute, Dr. Jungmann asked each leader to write down two roses and two weeds which exist in our district.  Perhaps one weed might be a “good enough” mentality.  Perhaps we need to be intentional to plant a growth mindset each day where we determine that we indeed have a “changeable ability that can be developed through learning” (Dweck, 2006, p. 15).

Dweck, C.S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.